Renewable energy may be included in the Green Deal

The Government's announcement last week on measures being considered for inclusion in the Green Deal, and its thinking on consumer protection, went some way to allay criticisms of the scheme.

The Green Deal is expected to offer loans of up to £10,000 over a period of up to 25 years. To qualify for a loan, improvements must meet the golden rule - that repayments can be made out of the savings on energy that result from the work done. The scheme is expected to start in October 2012.

The improvements being considered by government for inclusion in the Green Deal are:

Water heating

Microgeneration

However, these are for discussion, and DECC is gathering evidence of installation costs, lifetime and performance for the measures on the list.

Inclusion of microgeneration in the provisional list has been widely welcomed. However, given the significant upfront cost of microgeneration technologies, there is some concern as to whether any of them will meet the golden rule in the near future.

Some more expensive improvements, such as solid wall insulation will be eligible for additional upfront subsidy under a new Energy Company Obligation. Alternatively householders can choose to pay a top-up to bring the repayments down to meet the golden rule.

The Energy Company Obligation will also help vulnerable households, and those on lower incomes, who often underheat their homes, and so will see much smaller, or no, energy savings as a result of improvements.

The government also announced the measures that it is taking to protect consumers. The first principle is the Green Deal providers are responsible for looking after their customers throughout the 25 year lifetime of a Green Deal Plan. Providers will have to be accredited under a scheme administered by UKAS, and must adhere to a Green Deal Code. The British Standards Institute is responsible for developing a Publicly Available Specification for the retrofitting of energy efficiency measures in domestic and non-domestic buildings.

Comments

CHP isn't included in the Green Deal, as far as I know, but it is included in the feed-in tariff. Currently the first 30,000 people to install micro-CHP will be paid 11p
for every kWh or electricity generated and an additional 3.2p per kWh for
any unused electricity exported back to the grid. This feed-in tariff payment will continue for 10 years and is index linked.

It's the only technology that the rate increased for on 1 April 2012 due to low take up. Despite it being available for two years, less than 1,000 people have taken it up so far.

I hope CHP is covered by the Green Deal. There is no incentive forUK energy suppliers such as British Gas developing a system which uses less energy.

For the FIT case everyone can do the maths as soon as an FIT rate is published installers and makers slice the cake leaving a few crumbs for the housholder or if they do not want the technology to flourish set the capex so high that no-one installs.

With a loan or grant system the game is open to the BRIC countries to export cheap units to the UK . They will make money, the householder will make money and less CO2 will be produced.

It would be nice to hear that DECC will include CHP in the Green deal and publishes a yearly degressive schedule of what sort of level of grant/subsidy/loan they will apply for domestic CHP.

Perhaps DECC will give a grant of £x for the first N units then a lower grant for the next so many etc. DECC would have absolute certainty over the costs.